remarks in slightly bored fashion (he had showed off his ponderous
playthings to divers kings, potentates and bigwigs at home and
abroad, I learned) when I, though properly awed by the gun but more
especially by the gunner, ventured to suggest that a gun that had
been through three engagements and had been fired so frequently must
necessarily show some signs of wear. The gunner glanced at me, and I
shall never forget that look. With his eyes on mine, he touched a
lever in negligent fashion, whereon silently the great breech slipped
away with a hiss and whistle of air, and with his gaze always fixed
he suggested I might glance down the bore.
Obediently I stooped, whereon he spake on this wise:
"If you cast your heyes to the right abaft the breech you'll observe
slight darkening of riflin's. Now glancin' t'left of piece you'll
per-ceive slight darkening of riflin's. Now casting your heyes right
forrard you'll re-mark slight roughening of riflin's towards muzzle
of piece and--there y'are, sir. One hundred and twenty-seven times
she's been fired by my 'and and good for as many more--both of us.
Arternoon, gentlemen, and--thank ye!"
Saying which he touched a lever in the same negligent fashion, the
mighty breech block slid back into place, and I walked forth humbly
into the outer air.
Here I took leave of my Midshipmite, who stood among a crowd of his
fellows to watch me down the gangplank, and I followed whither I was
led very full of thought, as well I might be, until rousing, I found
myself on the deck of that famous _Warspite_, which our foes are so
comfortably certain lies a shattered wreck off Jutland. Here I
presently fell into discourse with a tall lieutenant, with whom I
went alow and aloft; he showed me cockpit, infirmary and engine-room;
he showed me the wonder of her steering apparatus, and pointed to the
small hand-wheel in the bowels of this huge ship whereby she had been
steered limping into port. He directed my gaze also to divers vast
shell holes and rents in her steel sides, now very neatly mended by
steel plates held in place by many large bolts. Wherever we went were
sailors, by the hundred it seemed, and yet I was struck by the size
and airy spaciousness between decks.
"The strange thing about the Hun," said my companion, as we mounted
upward again, "is that he is so amazingly accurate with his big guns.
Anyway, as we steamed into range he registered direct hits time after
time, and his misses were so close the spray was flying all over us.
Yes, Fritz is wonderfully accurate, but"--here my companion paused to
flick some dust from his braided cuff--"but when we began to knock
him about a bit it was funny how it rattled him--quite funny, you
know. His shots got wider and wider, until they were falling pretty
well a mile wide--very funny!" and the lieutenant smiled dreamily.
"Fritz will shoot magnificently if you only won't shoot back. But
really I don't blame him for thinking he'd sunk us; you see, there
were six of 'em potting away at us at one time--couldn't see us for
spray--"
"And how did you feel just then?" I enquired.
"Oh, rotten! You see I'd jammed my finger in some tackle for one
thing, and just then the light failed us. We'd have bagged the lot
if the light had held a little longer. But next time--who knows? Care
for a cup of tea?"
"Thanks!" I answered. "But where are the others?"
"Oh, by Jove! I fancy your party's gone--I'll see!"
This proving indeed the case, I perforce took my leave, and with a
midshipman to guide me, presently stepped aboard a boat which bore us
back beneath the shadow of that mighty bridge stark against the
evening sky.
Riding citywards through the deepening twilight I bethought me of the
Midshipmite who, amid the roar and tumult of grim battle, had been
"too busy" to be afraid; of the round-headed gunner who, like his
gun, was ready and eager for more, and of the tall lieutenant who,
with death in many awful shapes shrieking and crashing about him,
felt "rotten" by reason of a bruised finger and failing light.
And hereupon I felt proud that I, too, was a Briton, of the same
breed as these mighty ships and the splendid fellows who man
them--these Keepers of the Seas, who in battle as in tempest do their
duty unseen, unheard, because it is their duty.
Therefore, all who are so blest as to live within these isles take
comfort and courage from this--that despite raging tempest and
desperate battle, we, trusting in the justice of our cause, in these
iron men and mighty ships, may rest secure, since truly worthy are
these, both ships and men, of the glorious traditions of the world's
most glorious navy.
But, as they do their duty by Britain and the Empire, let it be our
inestimable privilege as fellow Britons to do our duty as nobly both
to the Empire and--to them.
VII
A HOSPITAL
The departure platform of a great station (for such as have eyes to
see) is always a sad place, but nowadays it is a place of tragedy.
He was tall and thin--a boyish figure--and his khaki-clad arm was
close about her slender form. The hour was early and their corner
bleak and deserted, thus few were by to heed his stiff-lipped,
agonised smile and the passionate clasp of her hands, or to hear her
heartbreaking sobs and his brave words of comfort; and I, shivering
in the early morning wind, hasted on, awed by a grief that made the
grey world greyer.
Very soon London was behind us, and we were whirling through a
countryside wreathed in mist wherein I seemed to see a girl's
tear-wet cheeks and a boy's lips that smiled so valiantly for all
their pitiful quiver; thus I answered my companion somewhat at random
and the waiter's proffer of breakfast was an insult. And, as I stared
out at misty trees and hedgerow I began as it were to sense a
grimness in the very air--the million-sided tragedy of war; behind me
the weeping girl, before me and looming nearer with every mile, the
Somme battle-front.
At a table hard by a group of clear-eyed subalterns were chatting and
laughing over breakfast, and in their merriment I, too, rejoiced. Yet
the grimness was with me still as we rocked and swayed through the
wreathing mist.
But trains, even on a foggy morning, have a way of getting there at
last, so, in due season, were docks and more docks, with the funnels
of ships, and beyond these misty shapes upon a misty sea, the gaunt
outlines of destroyers that were to convoy us Francewards. Hereupon
my companion, K., a hardened traveller, inured to customs, passports
and the like noxious things, led me through a jostling throng, his
long legs striding rapidly when they found occasion, past rank upon
rank of soldiers returning to duty, very neat and orderly, and
looking, I thought, a little grim.
Presently the warps were cast off and very soon we were in the lift
and roll of the Channel; the white cliffs slowly faded, the wind
freshened, and I, observing that every one had donned life belts,
forthwith girded on one of the clumsy contrivances also.
In mid-channel it blew hard and the destroyers seemed to be making
heavy weather of it, now lost in spray, now showing a glistening
height of freeboard, and, as I watched, remembering why they were
there, my cumbrous life belt grew suddenly very comfortable.
Came a growing density on the horizon, a blue streak that slowly and
little by little grew into roofs, chimneys, docks and shipping, and
France was before us, and it was with almost reverent hands that I
laid aside my clumsy cork jacket and was presently on French soil.
And yet, except for a few chattering porters, the air rang with good
English voices hailing each other in cheery greetings, and khaki was
everywhere. But now, as I followed my companion's long legs past
these serried, dun-coloured ranks, it seemed to me that they held
themselves straighter and looked a little more grim even than they
had done in England.
I stood, lost in the busy scene before me, when, hearing K.'s voice,
I turned to be introduced to Captain R., tall, bright-eyed,
immaculate, and very much master of himself and circumstances it
seemed, for, despite crowded customs office, he whisked us through
and thence before sundry officials, who glared at me and my passport,
signed, stamped, returned it and permitted me to go.
After luncheon we drove to a great base hospital where I was
introduced to the Colonel-Surgeon in charge, a quiet man, who took
us readily under his able guidance. And indeed a huge place was this,
a place for me of awe and wonder, the more so as I learned that the
greater part of it had come into being within one short year.
It lies beside the sea, this hospital, where clean winds blow, its
neat roadways are bordered by green lawns and flanked by long, low
buildings that reach away in far perspective, buildings of corrugated
iron, of wood and asbestos, a very city, but one where there is no
riot and rush of traffic, truly a city of peace and brooding
quietude.
And as I looked upon this silent city, my awe grew, for the Colonel,
in his gentle voice, spoke of death and wounds, of shell-shock,
nerve-wrack and insanity; but he told also of wonderful cures, of
miracles performed on those that should have died, and of reason and
sanity won back.
"And you?" I questioned, "have you done many such wonders?"
"Few!" he answered, and sighed. "You see, my duties now are chiefly
administrative," and he seemed gently grieved that it should be so.
He brought us into wards, long, airy and many-windowed, places of
exquisite neatness and order, where calm-faced sisters were busied,
and smart, soft-treading orderlies came and went. Here in white cots
lay many bandaged forms, some who, propped on pillows, watched us
bright-eyed and nodded in cheery greeting; others who lay so
ominously still.
But as I passed between the long rows of cots, I was struck with the
look of utter peace and content on so many of the faces and wondered,
until, remembering the hell whence they had so lately come, I thought
I understood. Thus, bethinking me of how these dire hurts had been
come by, I took off my hat, and trod between these beds of silent
suffering as softly as I could, for these men had surely come "out of
great tribulation."
In another ward I saw numbers of German wounded, most of them
bearded; many there were who seemed weakly and undersized, and among
them were many grey heads, a very motley company. These, the Colonel
informed us, received precisely the same treatment as our own
wounded, even to tobacco and cigarettes.
We followed our soft-voiced conductor through many other wards where
he showed us strange and wondrous devices in splints; he halted us by
hanging beds of weird shape and cots that swung on pulleys; he
descanted on wounds to flesh and bone and brain, of lives snatched
from the grip of Death by the marvels of up-to-date surgery, and as I
listened to his pleasant voice I sensed much of the grim wonders he
left untold. We visited X-ray rooms and operating theatre against
whose walls were glass cases filled with a multitudinous array of
instruments for the saving of life, and here it was I learned that in
certain cases, a chisel, properly handled, was a far more delicate
tool than the finest saw.
"A wonderful place," said I for the hundredth time as we stepped out
upon a trim, green lawn. The Colonel-Surgeon smiled.
"It took some planning," he admitted, "a little while ago it was a
sandy wilderness."
"But these lawns?" I demurred.
"Came to me of their own accord," he answered. "At least, the seed
did, washed ashore from a wreck, so I had it planted and it has done
rather well. Now, what else can I show you? It would take all the
afternoon to visit every ward, and they are all much alike--but there
is the mad ward if you'd care to see that? This way."
A strange place, this, divided into compartments or cubicles where
were many patients in the familiar blue overalls, most of whom rose
and stood at attention as we entered. Tall, soldierly figures they
seemed, and yet with an indefinable something in their looks--a
vagueness of gaze, a loose-lipped, too-ready smile, a vacancy of
expression. Some there were who scowled sullenly enough, others who
sat crouched apart, solitary souls, who, I learned, felt themselves
outcast; others again crouched in corners haunted by the dread of a
pursuing vengeance always at hand.
One such the Colonel accosted, asking what was wrong. The man looked
up, looked down and muttered unintelligibly, whereupon the Sister
spoke.
"He believes that every one thinks him a spy," she explained, and
touched the man's bowed head with a hand as gentle as her voice.
"Shell-shock is a strange thing," said the Colonel-Surgeon, "and
affects men in many extraordinary ways, but seldom permanently."
"You mean that those poor fellows will recover?" I asked.
"Quite ninety per cent," he answered in his quiet, assured voice.
I was shown over laundries complete in every detail; I walked through
clothing stores where, in a single day, six hundred men had been
equipped from head to foot; I beheld large machines for the
sterilisation of garments foul with the grime of battle and other
things.
Truly, here, within the hospital that had grown, mushroom-like,
within the wild, was everything for the alleviation of hurts and
suffering more awful than our fighting ancestors ever had to endure.
Presently I left this place, but now, although a clean, fresh wind
blew and the setting sun peeped out, the world somehow seemed a
grimmer place than ever.
In the Dark Ages, humanity endured much of sin and shame and
suffering, but never such as in this age of Reason and Culture. This
same earth has known evils of every kind, has heard the screams of
outraged innocence, the groan of tortured flesh, and has reddened
beneath the heel of Tyranny; this same sun has seen the smoke and
ravishment of cities and been darkened by the hateful mists of
war--but never such a war as this of cultured barbarity with all its
new devilishness. Shell-shock and insanity, poison gas and slow
strangulation, liquid fire and poison shells. Rape, Murder, Robbery,
Piracy, Slavery--each and every crime is here--never has humanity
endured all these horrors together until now.
But remembering by whose will these evils have been loosed upon the
world, remembering the innocent blood, the bitter tears, the agony of
soul and heartbreak, I am persuaded that Retribution must follow as
sure as to-morrow's dawn. The evil that men do lives after them and
lives on for ever.
Should they, who have worked for and planned this misery, escape the
ephemeral justice of man, there is yet the inexorable tribunal of the
Hereafter, which no transgressor, small or great, humble or mighty,
may in any wise escape.
VIII
THE GUNS
A fine, brisk morning; a long, tree-bordered road dappled with
fugitive sun-beams, making a glory of puddles that leapt in
shimmering spray beneath our flying wheels. A long, straight road
that ran on and on unswerving, uphill and down, beneath tall,
straight trees that flitted past in never-ending procession, and
beyond these a rolling, desolate countryside of blue hills and dusky
woods; and in the air from beyond this wide horizon a sound that rose
above the wind gusts and the noise of our going, a faint whisper that
seemed in the air close about us and yet to be of the vague
distances, a whisper of sound, a stammering murmur, now rising, now
falling, but never quite lost.
In rain-sodden fields to right and left were many figures bent in
diligent labour, men in weatherworn, grey-blue uniforms and
knee-boots, while on the roadside were men who lounged, or sat
smoking cigarettes, rifle across knees and wicked-looking bayonets
agleam, wherefore these many German prisoners toiled with the
unremitting diligence aforesaid.
The road surface improving somewhat we went at speed and, as we
lurched and swayed, the long, straight road grew less deserted. Here
and there transport lorries by ones and twos, then whole convoys
drawn up beside the road, often axle deep in mud, or lumbering
heavily onwards; and ever as we went that ominous, stammering murmur
beyond the horizon grew louder and more distinct.
On we went, through scattered villages alive with khaki-clad figures
with morions cocked at every conceivable angle, past leafy lanes
bright with the wink of long bayonets; through country towns, whose
wide squares and narrow, old-world streets rang with the ordered
tramp of feet, the stamp of horses and rumble of gun wheels, where
ruddy English faces turned to stare and broad khaki backs swung
easily beneath their many accoutrements. And in street and square and
by-street, always and ever was that murmurous stammer of sound more
ominous and threatening, yet which nobody seemed to heed--not even
K., my companion, who puffed his cigarette and "was glad it had
stopped raining."
So, picking our way through streets a-throng with British faces,
dodging guns and limbers, wagons and carts of all descriptions, we
came out upon the open road again. And now, there being no surface at
all to speak of, we perforce went slow, and I watched where, just in
front, a string of lorries lumbered heavily along, pitching and
rolling very much like boats in a choppy sea.
Presently we halted to let a column go by, officers a-horse and
a-foot with the long files behind, but all alike splashed and
spattered with mud. Men, these, who carried their rifles anyhow, who
tramped along, rank upon rank, weary men, who showed among them here
and there grim evidence of battle--rain-sodden men with hair that
clung to muddy brows beneath the sloping brims of muddy helmets; men
who tramped ankle-deep in mud and who sang and whistled blithe as
birds. So they splashed wearily through the mud, upborne in their
fatigue by that indomitable spirit that has always made the Briton
the fighting man he is.
At second speed we toiled along again behind the lorries who were
making as bad weather of it as ever, when all at once I caught my
breath, hearkening to the far, faint skirling of Highland bagpipes,
and, leaning from the car, saw before us a company of Highlanders,
their mud-splashed knees a-swing together, their khaki kilts swaying
in rhythm, their long bayonets a-twinkle, while down the wind came
the regular tramp of their feet and the wild, frenzied wailing of
their pipes. Soon we were up with them, bronzed, stalwart figures,
grim fighters from muddy spatter-dashes to steel helmets, beneath
which eyes turned to stare at us--eyes blue and merry, eyes dark and
sombre--as they swung along to the lilting music of the pipes.
At the rear the stretcher-bearers marched, the rolled-up stretchers
upon their shoulders; but even so, by various dark stains and marks
upon that dingy canvas, I knew that here was a company that had done
and endured much. Close by me was a man whose hairy knee was black
with dried blood--to him I tentatively proffered my cigarette case.
"Wull ye hae one the noo?" I questioned. For a moment he eyed me a
trifle dour and askance, then he smiled (a grave Scots smile).
"Thank ye, I wull that!" said he, and extracted the cigarette with
muddy fingers.
"Ye'll hae a sore leg, I'm thinking!" said I.
"Ou aye," he admitted with the same grave smile, "but it's no sae
muckle as a' that--juist a wee bit skelpit I--"
Our car moved forward, gathered speed, and we bumped and swayed on
our way; the bagpipes shrieked and wailed, grew plaintively soft, and
were drowned and lost in that other sound which was a murmur no
longer, but a rolling, distant thunder, with occasional moments of
silence.
"Ah, the guns at last!" said I.
"Yes," nodded K., lighting another cigarette, "I've been listening to
them for the last hour."
Here my friend F., who happened to be the Intelligence Officer in
charge, leaned forward to say:
"I'm afraid we can't get into Beaumont Hamel, the Boches are strafing
it rather, this morning, but we'll go as near as we can get, and then
on to what was La Boiselle. We shall leave the car soon, so better
get into your tin hats." Forthwith I buckled on one of the morions we
had brought for the purpose and very uncomfortable I found it. Having
made it fairly secure, I turned, grinning furtively, to behold K.'s
classic features crowned with his outlandish-seeming headgear, and
presently caught him grinning furtively at mine.
"They're not so heavy as I expected," said I.
"About half a pound," he suggested.
Pulling up at a shell-shattered village we left the car and trudged
along a shell-torn road, along a battered and rusty railway line, and
presently struck into a desolate waste intersected by sparse
hedgerows and with here and there desolate, leafless trees, many of
which, in shattered trunk and broken bough, showed grim traces of
what had been; and ever as we advanced these ugly scars grew more
frequent, and we were continually dodging sullen pools that were the
work of bursting shells. And then it began to rain again.
On we went, splashing through puddles, slipping in mud, and ever as
we went my boots and my uncomfortable helmet grew heavier and
heavier, while in the heaven above, in the earth below and in the air
about us was the quiver and thunder of unseen guns. As we stumbled
through the muddy desolation I beheld wretched hovels wherein
khaki-clad forms moved, and from one of these damp and dismal
structures a merry whistling issued, with hoarse laughter.
On we tramped, through rain and mud, which, like my helmet, seemed to
grow momentarily heavier.
"K.," said I, as he floundered into a shell hole, "about how heavy
did you say these helmets were?"
"About a pound!" said he, fierce-eyed. "Confound the mud!"
Away to our left and high in air a puff of smoke appeared, a
pearl-grey, fleecy cloud, and as I, unsuspecting, watched it writhe
into fantastic shapes, my ears were smitten with a deafening report,
and instinctively I ducked.
"Shrapnel!" said F., waving his hand in airy introduction. "They're
searching the road yonder I expect--ah, there goes another! Yes,
they're trying the road yonder--but here's the trench--in with you!"
I am free to confess that I entered that trench precipitately--so
hurriedly, in fact, that my helmet fell off, and, as I replaced it, I
was not sorry to see that this trench was very deep and narrow. As we
progressed, very slowly by reason of clinging mud, F. informed us
that this trench had been our old front line before we took Beaumont
Hamel; and I noticed many things, as, clips of cartridges, unexploded
bombs, Lewis-gun magazines, parts of a broken machine gun, and
various odds and ends of accoutrements. In some places this trench
had fallen in because of rain and other things and was almost
impassable, wherefore, after much floundering and splashing, F.
suggested we should climb out again, which we did forthwith, very
moist and muddy.
And thus at last I looked at that wide stretch of country across
which our men had advanced unshaken and undismayed, through a hell
the like of which the world had never known before; and, as I stood
there, I could almost see those long, advancing waves of khaki-clad
figures, their ranks swept by the fire of countless rifles and
machine guns, pounded by high explosives, blasted by withering
shrapnel, lost in the swirling death-mist of poison gas--heroic ranks
which, rent asunder, shattered, torn, yet swung steadily on through
smoke and flame, unflinching and unafraid. As if to make the picture
more real, came the thunderous crash of a shell behind us, but this
time I forgot to duck.
Far in front of us I saw a huge puff of smoke, and as it thinned out
beheld clouds of earth and broken beams that seemed to hang suspended
a moment ere they fell and vanished. After a moment came another puff
of smoke further to our right, and beyond this another, and again,
beyond this, another.
"A battery of heavies," said F.
Even as he spoke the four puffs burst forth again and upon exactly
the same ground.
At this juncture a head appeared over the parapet behind us and after
some talk with F., came one who tendered us a pair of binoculars, by
whose aid I made out the British new line of trenches which had once
been German. So I stood, dry-mouthed, to watch the burst of those
huge shells exploding upon our British line. Fascinated, I stared
until F.'s hand on my arm aroused me, and returning the glasses with
a hazy word of thanks I followed my companions, though often turning
to watch the shooting which now I thought much too good.